one day after playing perhaps their worst game of the year, a gritty lion squad ended the penn basketball team’s five game winning streak and put themselves in position to play in the first ivy league post season hoops tournament. it was the most thrilling new york – philly dust up in, almost exactly, 38 years. not since march 3, 1978 when tom penders’s dynamic crew (led by all timer alton byrd, high flying rickie free and bruising juan mitchell) stopped a penn five (led by kevin mcdonald and tony price) 88 – 84, have the two teams played a more consequential game in so fully satisfying a manner. granted, the furious end to end battle in ’78 featured two better teams and a possible share of the ivy title was at stake but still the just concluded battle held us rapt till its thrilling conclusion. in a game of surges, the light blue forged a late game seven point edge and then hung on for dear life in front of a shrieking crowd of 2,500 to win 70 – 67. in the process, they tied steve donahue’s kids for the fourth and final spot in the tourney and, even better, hold the tie break for that little slice of heaven. the agonies and ecstasies of the battle were so numerous and various that our readers will have to indulge us should we blather on over much.
we don’t exaggerate when we say that this must win game took place at perhaps the darkest time of coach engles’s first season on the heights. disappointing failures against the quakers, tigers and cantabs had been followed by disaster. an unfathomable last second overtime loss to a mediocre dartmouth five the previous saturday preceded an utter whipping at the hands of the league leading, but still disgusting, princeton tigers just the night before. the 19 point margin in that tangle hardly represented the gap between the teams. the lions fell behind 11 – 0 before decorating the score board with a crooked line. the home team’s ineptitude was largely matched by their guests, thankfully and columbia actually out played the visitors for the last ten minutes of the first half, trailing only by five, 27 – 22, at the break. any notion that the light blue would continue the rally, however, was immediately dispelled by five very quick points from the new jerseyans. the tigers ceased trying to score down low and swung the ball around and across the perimeter to open three point shooters. devin cannady was the foremost recipient of these passes and drained five of seven treys in appreciation. he was enthusiastically aided by myles stephens who enjoyed another effective evening against the lions and tallied 16. the lead steadily grew to 25 with just under eight minutes to play. princeton skipper mitch henderson finally called off the assault four minutes later and sent in his bench. a few late scores restored some of columbia’s dignity but the rout was an emphatically bitter cherry on the lions’ five game skid.
and so it was a chastened, desperate, lion five that warmed up saturday evening. pennsylvania was on a five game winning streak that had commenced on february 10 against columbia in philadelphia and included a dominant win over yale in new haven. the run carried them from dead last in the ivies to fourth place ahead of the light blue. any realistic hopes of lion participation in the league’s inaugural post season tourney depended on cooling off the sizzling quakers. toward this end, and simultaneously acknowledging senior night, coach engles tinkered slightly with his usual starting crew. diminutive and seldom employed point guard kendall jackson shook the dust off his shorts and drained a three pointer to start the scoring. kj would not score again, but his early defensive energy led by example. meanwhile, columbia’s scoring leader, luke petrasek dropped in 12 points, which were necessary to offset the unconscious accuracy of penn’s jackson donahue (no relation to coach steve donahue) who drained 4 of 5 treys en route to 14 first half points. besides petrasek, and messr jackson’s cameo, the lions’ top performer was first year big man patrick tape, who did not score but grabbed 4 rebounds and blocked 2 shots in a mere eight minutes. the slim 6′ 10″ north carolinian was defensively quick down low, consistently cutting off drives from both quaker bigs and guards. meanwhile, the teams traded buckets and slim leads to the very end of the first period, when a.j. brodeur drilled a clock beating three pointer as the backboard flashed red. 35 – 33 quakers at the half.
the second half featured different scorers for both teams, as petrasek tallied a mere five and donahue did not hit another three pointer. with the lions’ defensive attention turned more seriously to the perimeter, coach donahue had his boys look inside where a.j. brodeur scored 9 of his 16 points and ryan betley added seven second half points. that effort, however, was offset by the columbia tandem of mike smith and nate hickman. smith tallied 15 of his 20 points in the second period, including 5 – 6 from the foul line. meanwhile, hickman, who has struggled all ivy season, threw in eleven second half points including 4 – 4 from the charity stripe. it was his three pointer with five and a half minutes remaining that stretched the lion lead to 67 – 60. though these back courters did the bulk of the work, it was a driving reverse layup by senior forward chris mccomber and a subsequent rim bending dunk by his immense classmate conor voss that drew the loudest roar from the crowd. the evening’s back and forth was not complete, however. the quakers closed to within two behind a matt howard three pointer and lay up by betley. smith’s gorgeous step back trey from the northwest corner of levien with a minute to play restored some order but two free throws by betley brought the quakers within three. with twenty seconds to play, brodeur grabbed a rebound and the subsequent time out gave the quakers possession at midcourt with 12 seconds on the clock. a missed three pointer by donahue was pulled down by the quakers’ devon goodman and donahue had another opportunity, but petrasek chased to the corner and blocked a last gasp from the penn guard. columbia 70 – penn 67.
seven weeks of work now come down to one weekend in march. penn and columbia are tied in fourth place, but the light blue holds the tiebreaker of the moment. if the lions beat brown up in providence on friday and pennsylvania falls to harvard in philadelphia on saturday, the lions are assured the final playoff spot. any other result (a penn win and a lion win, a penn win and a lion loss, losses by both teams) and the drama spins on till saturday when the lions visit the yalies at john j. lee amphitheater in new haven while the quakers host dartmouth. if one of the teams wins its finale while the other loses – jubilation for the winner. if both win or both lose (and dartmouth beats only princeton and yale has lost to cornell on friday) , the still tied squads would be distinguished by a compilation of their respective strengths by an amalgam of ratings agencies. we think that comparison will nudge the lions out of the tourney. as penn spends the weekend at home, while the lions travel to southern new england, the quakers have a scheduling advantage. that advantage, i think, is further enhanced by the fact that harvard will come to the palestra on saturday having battled imperial princeton the night before. the game should take something out of the cantabs, perhaps enough for a desperate penn squad to drop them. consequently, “BEAT BROWN” and “GO CRIMSON” are our perhaps powerless but nonetheless incessant double mantra for the next five days.
peace out and d up,
paulie b